When someone is raised female and the genes say XY

 

South Africa's Caster Semenya

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer – Fri Sep 11, 7:04 pm ET

WASHINGTON – It's the birth defect people don't talk about. A baby is born not completely male or female. The old term was hermaphrodite, then intersex. Now it's called "disorders of sexual development." Sometimes the person with the problem doesn't even know it and finds out in an all too public way.

That's been the painful plight of a few female athletes through history. And apparently that's the situation for South African track star Caster Semenya.

Two Australian newspapers reported Friday that gender tests show the world champion athlete has no ovaries or uterus and internal testes that produce large amounts of testosterone. The international sports federation that ordered the tests wouldn't confirm the reports.

Experts say Semenya should be allowed to race as a woman and they cringe at how her case is exploding publicly in the news media. They worry about psychological scars. Two years ago, a star female track athlete who tested male attempted suicide.

Unless she took some illicit substance, Semenya is a female with a birth defect, simple as that, said Dr. Myron Genel, a professor emeritus of pediatrics at Yale University. He was part of a special panel of experts convened by the International Association of Athletics Federations in 1990 that helped end much, but not all, genetic gender testing.

"It's no different in a sense than a youngster who is born with a hole in the heart," Genel said. "These are in fact birth defects in an area that a lot of people are uncomfortable with."

Semenya is hardly alone. Estimates vary, but about 1 percent of people are born with abnormal sex organs, experts say. These people may have the physical characteristics of both genders or a chromosomal disorder or simply ambiguous features.

Sometimes a sexual development problem is all too obvious when a baby is born. Other times, the disorder in girls may not be noticed until puberty, when she doesn't start her period. And still other times, especially with the androgen insensitivity syndrome experts think Semenya might have, it remains hidden until she tries to have a baby — or in the case of an athlete, until she's given a genetic test.

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